


everywhere i go (leads me back to you)

by emso



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Aobajousai, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, M/M, Wakes & Funerals, in case it isn’t blatantly clear already this is.......somewhat sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26616295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emso/pseuds/emso
Summary: "What if the tiny differences between my universe and yours are that – in mine, you and I ended up together, and… and I'm alive?"Universes are seamed like the pages of a book; when they touch, you can walk right through into the next one over. Most of the time, no one would even notice anything amiss. Perhaps there's one less spoon in the world. Perhaps a dog in New Zealand has been named Coco instead of Spot. It would be easy to go on living, none the wiser.Except when Oikawa Tooru walks into the universe next door, Iwaizumi Hajime has just arrived home from his funeral.
Relationships: Hanamaki Takahiro & Iwaizumi Hajime & Matsukawa Issei, Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 79
Kudos: 238
Collections: Tumblr Haikyuu!! Week 2020





	everywhere i go (leads me back to you)

**Author's Note:**

> _DAY 1: RULE THE COURT (Sept 25th)_  
>  A. Favourite Character  
> ☞ **B. Seasons**
> 
> cw  
> \- extended discussions of death/funerals/grief  
> \- mentions of the following: vomiting (no one actually vomits), legal drinking, hallucinations/visions/ghosts, car accidents
> 
> // title from 'i miss you, i'm sorry' by gracie abrams //
> 
> ( i would personally recommend listening to some music while you read this !! )

It's snowing the day Hajime's exams finish at the very end of January. When Hanamaki swings open the door to his flat, the burst of warmth fogs the air between them, and Hanamaki shivers as he's hit face-first by the evening frost, shuffling his bare feet. For a moment they stand there looking at one another, unable to speak. Only the bleary sounds of the wintry city fill the silence.

Then Hajime lifts up the pale cream-coloured paper box in his hands. Hanamaki shifts his weight slightly, keeping the door propped open with one foot as he takes the box.

"Happy belated birthday," Hajime says.

Hanamaki's eyes flick up to meet his again, before he gingerly opens the box. An unreadable expression passes over his face as he gazes at its contents. "…Profiteroles," he says, softly.

"You know I'm bad at presents." He scuffs at a mark in the ground with his heel, hands now shoved deep into his coat pockets. "…He always used to pick them for us both."

When he works up the courage to finally look up again, he almost wishes he hadn't. Hanamaki's face looks like it's on the verge of collapsing in, and his hands tighten around the sides of the box as he stares down at it resolutely even as his lips tremble. A gust coils its way around their ankles and Hanamaki starts slightly, backing into the glow of his hallway.

"Tea," he says, mostly to himself. "I was about to have some. I'll make you a mug."

Hajime follows him into the familiar space and sits down wordlessly on the slightly worn couch while Hanamaki pads around the kitchen. It's barely two minutes before he reappears with two steaming mugs, passing Hajime one as he sinks into the far end of the couch, cradling the other.

"Will we be okay to drive up if it's still snowing?" Hajime says, bringing his mug to his lips.

Hanamaki nods. "Yeah. I've been driving all winter, it should be fine."

"Okay. If you're sure."

They lapse into silence again. There's been more of that than anything else in Hajime's life lately. He's always liked the quiet, but this isn't that – these days the silences have been decidedly hollow, nothing more than gaping vacancies.

"It'll be good to go together, anyway," Hanamaki says finally. "I'm glad you're… I'm glad we're both in Tokyo.”

Hajime thinks he gets it. The city feels acutely _large_ now in a way it hadn't quite before. It's always felt bustling and busy and _tall_ , yes, but never this expansive. It's almost like the place keeps stretching and stretching further out from them, as though it's lost a gravitational core to root it down and really, Hajime supposes, that's precisely what's happened. So yes, it’s a bit of a relief that despite that, despite everything feeling far too _big_ all of a sudden, they at least have one another still.

Does he attempt to say any of this? Will it make Hanamaki feel a little better, or a little worse?

"…Yeah," is what he opts for.

"Matsukawa's planning on coming back with us here," Hanamaki continues. "I think he's going to stay here at mine for a bit – a week or something, maybe."

He's placed the box of profiteroles open on the couch between them, but neither of them have reached for one. Hajime doesn't even really know whether they're any good. Maybe somebody’s already given him some. Is his love of profiteroles common knowledge, even to people who haven't known him since high school?

Subconsciously, Hajime glances at the bookshelf leaned against the far wall and immediately spots it slotted carefully right at eye level for ease of access – the photobook they'd gifted him last year. Oikawa had pointed it out at the bookstore they'd been browsing, declaring it 'the one' as soon as he laid eyes on it, ushering Hajime to the checkout aisle without leaving him so much as a moment to argue. Hajime had briefly wondered at the time whether Oikawa was just picking the first thing he saw to be done with the whole present-shopping ordeal, but had already known then, deep down, that there was no way that was the case. His gut feeling had been confirmed when Hanamaki exclaimed with obvious excitement upon pulling it out of the paper bag. Apparently the book was compiled by a photographer he religiously followed on social media, and he'd been waiting for his next paycheck to maybe buy it.

"Thanks for these, by the way," Hanamaki says suddenly, as though reading Hajime's mind. "You seriously didn't have to."

Hajime shrugs a little. "They're really nothing. I actually do have something else for you, though." He reaches into his pocket and fiddles with the envelope inside as his finger brushes against one corner. For some reason, it suddenly feels very, very heavy in there. "I found this between some books and stuff." Steeling himself, he pulls it out in one quick motion and sets it on the table. "He, um… always wrote birthday cards a bit early."

He watches as Hanamaki picks it up carefully. The telltale quiver of the envelope gives away the barely detectable tremor in his fingers. He turns it over in his hands once, then does it again, and then brings it down to hold in his lap. "I'll read it later," he says quietly.

"Yeah."

Hanamaki blinks rapidly at the ceiling a few times, and then his eyes dart back down to meet Hajime's as he smiles hesitantly. "...He never liked us reading his sappy cards in front of each other."

The world doesn't feel too big right now. Right now, it feels constrictively small, suffocating them both in this room with its photobook – its profiteroles – Hanamaki's haphazardly half-packed travel bag near his bedroom door – the sunken dip in the middle of the couch between them where someone else, not more than two weeks ago, used to sit. The dip is roughly, Hajime thinks, the size of his heart.

He breathes out, slowly. "Yeah."

* * *

They drive up to Miyagi early, before the roads start blocking up. Matsukawa's there to meet them when they arrive. The three of them go with their families to the wake, and then the funeral ceremony the next day, and somehow Hajime doesn't cry at either. Too many people are talking to him for that – murmuring condolences, brushing comforting hands across his shoulders. Hanamaki and Matsukawa flank him stubbornly the entire time, without him ever asking. He's grateful.

He stays with his family a few days, and then he and Hanamaki make the drive back to Tokyo, this time joined by Matsukawa. The snow's eased up a little but it's still extraordinarily cold when Hajime opens the car door once they arrive at his. Hanamaki rolls down his window and sticks his head out as Hajime fumbles with his bags and keys on the side of the road.

"Call if you need anything," he says, and it's more a command than an offer. "Whenever. Really. _Whenever_."

Hajime nods, and watches them drive away.

The flat is cold. Of course. Despite the distinctly human, post-exam messiness he'd left strewn about before leaving for Miyagi, the whole place feels somehow unlived in, like a layer of dust has settled over everything. He should tidy; at least throw away some of the rubbish that's piling up. But as he looks around the place every remaining drop of energy within him seems to vanish, leaving him feeling utterly depleted, and the thought of doing _anything_ seems suddenly unfathomable. Stumbling over to the couch, he lets himself collapse into it face-first. After a moment spent steadying his breathing he screws his eyes tightly closed.

And then immediately opens them again and scrambles to his feet as he hears the bathroom door open.

Heart slamming against his chest, Hajime whirls wildly around to face the direction of the bathroom. He's so busy running through mental simulations of how exactly he can defend himself with a couple of couch cushions and a TV remote that it takes him a moment to register what he's seeing. And even then, it doesn't really _register_. No – surely his eyes – or his brain – are just playing tricks on him. From the stress, perhaps. The shock. The grief.

Whatever it is, he _cannot_ actually be seeing what he's seeing right now.

Because right there, standing outside the bathroom, mid-way through towelling his hair dry, is none other than Oikawa Tooru.

* * *

"Uh, Hajime," says the vision-that-looks-like-Oikawa, "I don't mean to judge, but how on Earth did you manage to completely trash the place while I was in the shower for, like, five minutes?"

Aside from the _very obvious_ craziness of this hallucination, two things strike him as kind of odd about the sentence. One is the use of his first name – even deep into their third year of uni, he and Oikawa never ended up breaking their childhood habit of relying on a jumble of surnames and a colourful range of nicknames, both insulting ( _oi, Shittykawa_ ) and deliberately annoying ( _Iwa-chaaan!_ ). That's the first odd thing. And the second—

"You shower for way longer than five minutes," he blurts out.

Oikawa gives him an all-too-familiar pout, and Hajime's stomach lurches. _Too real._ It feels too real. He sways a little and grabs the back of the couch to steady himself, taking deep breaths that shudder their way jaggedly through his lungs. Oikawa frowns at him in obvious concern. "Hey. You okay?"

It's not real. It's not real, he tells himself desperately, a wave of alarm soaking through him as he grapples with the dawning realisation that he must be having hallucinations. Oh God. Does he have to check himself into a hospital? This is really _bad_ , right? He stands there dazedly, blinking at the perfectly three-dimensional-looking figure in front of him as the questions keep skipping through his brain in quick succession. Should he tell the vision he's okay? He's not, though, is he? He thinks he might throw up if he opens his mouth, so saying he's okay might be out of the question anyway.

Oikawa's frown deepens. "…Hajime?"

There. That again. It kicks something into gear, because that definitively doesn't add up. If this is just his own hallucination, why is Oikawa calling him something he never did?

"Are you a... ghost?" Hajime manages, fingers digging painfully into the polyester of the couch.

Oikawa blinks, and then a puzzled smile spreads across his lips. "Am I a… what?"

"A ghost," Hajime repeats. "You can't be a hallucination, because you… he didn't call me that. You're not…" He swallows thicky, and chokes out a slightly hysterical laugh. "Jesus. I'm losing it. I'm seriously losing it."

The smile has dropped from Oikawa's face, and he lowers the towel from his hair slowly, stepping towards Hajime. Hajime instinctively flinches away. Oikawa stops immediately, looking bewildered.

"I don't understand," Oikawa says haltingly, and now they both seem just as confused as one another. "What's going on? Why would I be a hallucination? Are you oka—"

Midway through the sentence, his eyes flicker to something behind Hajime, and his brows knit themselves even further. "Wait. What did you do with our picture?"

"What?"

"Our picture on the wall. Where is it?"

Hajime turns around despite himself to look at the far wall Oikawa's referring to. It is, of course, bare. He doesn't know what he expected. "We don't… have a picture on that wall."

"Yes, we do!" Hajime turns back around to see Oikawa storm past him towards the wall, bringing his face close to it and scanning the surface as though that'll somehow manifest what he's looking for. "It was right here, the… the…" He straightens and whirls around, staring accusingly at Hajime. "You _know_ what I'm talking about! The one I made us take on our first date!"

Hajime recoils as though slapped. Their first _what_ now? So is he not a ghost? Is this just an absurd, non-canonical hallucination after all?

"Stop giving me that look," Oikawa bites out. "You're making me feel like I'm going crazy."

"Oh, believe me, I don't think you're the crazy one here," Hajime says, faintly.

"What are you even _talking_ about?"

"What _are_ you?" Hajime takes a heavy step towards him. "Why are you here?"

"Why wouldn't I be here?!”

Hajime's hands curl into fists by his sides as a hot flush washes over him, and he snarls out his answer more bitterly than he'd intended. "Because you're _dead_!"

The word rings through the room with an unpleasantly metallic edge. Hajime feels inexplicably exhausted, and he realises with a tired pang that it's the first time he's actually said the word to refer to Oikawa. Funny how well he's been dancing around the term, only to spit it out like this at the man himself.

No. Not the man himself. It's not.

Oikawa's tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip nervously. "Hajime," he says uncertainly, "stop it. That's not funny."

"No, you're right. None of this is funny," Hajime says, letting his eyes fall closed, and his voice sounds flat and weary even to his own ears. He's so, so worn out. This is the absolute last thing he needs to deal with right now.

Oikawa's quiet for a moment. Hajime almost thinks maybe he's disappeared after all, until he hears him say, in a very small voice, "So you're telling me I'm supposed to be dead. How, then?"

Hajime opens his eyes slowly and looks at him. Oikawa's shoulders are tense, but he's meeting Hajime's eyes head-on.

"Your taxi was in a collision," Hajime says. "Just over two weeks ago."

Silence. Hajime can feel his heartbeat thrumming just below the skin of his fingertips, his ears. Oikawa lets out a long, shaky breath, not dropping his gaze, even though his eyelashes quiver a little and his entire face has turned a shade paler. He seems to be waiting for Hajime to say something else – to break into a laugh and tease him for falling for it, perhaps – but his expression grows increasingly anxious as the silence creeps on. "You're… not messing with me?" he says eventually, his voice thick.

Hajime fights the urge to look away. "I. I really wish that I was."

A beat passes, and then Oikawa's knees give out and he sinks to the ground, his face buried in his hands. "Where _am_ I?" he says into his palms. "This… you're seriously saying I'm dead. But I'm not. I know I'm not. God." He makes a muffled little noise of anguish. "This is terrifying."

Hajime approaches him, a little wary but intuitively unable to just do nothing and watch Oikawa freak out on the floor alone. He reaches out and puts his hand as lightly as possible on Oikawa's downturned head, and immediately his own head spins at its utter substantiality. Oikawa's curls are still damp under his fingers, his scalp warm, his pulse, _God_ , his pulse steady – if a little fast. Oikawa lifts his face at the sudden touch and tentative realisation seems to pass through his eyes. Teardrops that didn't quite make it all the way out still cling to his lashes.

"You're not _my_ Iwaizume Hajime, are you?" Oikawa whispers.

Hajime swallows, seized by something that feels confusingly like reluctance. "I don't think so, no."

"Is that why our picture's not on the wall? Did we not take it? Or are we… not together?"

"We weren't a couple, if that's what you mean, no." Honestly, it's a bit of a miracle he manages to get the words out in a single coherent sentence. "We did, um, live together. This is our flat."

"I know this is our flat." Oikawa stares down at his hands a little blankly as though unsure of his own materiality, before looking back up at him. "But it's not… it's not _our_ flat. It's…" He shakes his head, eyes now flitting between various random points in the room, as though he's only now just properly taking everything in. "The picture's gone, but so's the stuffed bear from the theme park. I made you throw away those shoes over there and buy new ones before we went to my cousin's wedding. That mug… it's supposed to be lavender, not blue." His voice falters as he drinks in his surroundings with a lost expression on his face. "Almost everything is identical. But there are tiny… mistakes." His gaze drifts towards the window. "I had a succulent on the sill there for Makki's birthday present. We were waiting for my exams to finish so we could go deliver it to him in person. It was _right there_. Ten minutes ago. I watered it before my shower."

"You bought him a succulent?"

"He wants to start collecting them." Oikawa still has his face turned to the window, and the moonlight touches the bridge of his nose, the tops of his cheeks. His brown eyes look almost glassy. He's hugging at his knees tightly, and he looks smaller and more frightened than Hajime's ever seen Oikawa look in his life, his expression utterly open for a split second. Then he huffs out a soft laugh as though to alleviate his own unease. "I guess this Iwaizumi Hajime sucks at presents too, huh?"

Hajime's breath is caught in his throat. All he can say is: "I got him profiteroles."

"Hm. I suppose that's not terrible, for you." To Hajime's surprise, Oikawa then releases his grip on his knees and falls backwards to the ground, sprawling out onto his back with his arms tossed over his eyes. He releases a slow, quivering sigh into the air. "I… have no idea what's happening here, exactly. But I can't believe it's happened."

Iwaizumi hesitates for a moment, and then joins him on the floor, getting onto his back and staring up at the ceiling too. This might be better, anyway. It means he doesn't have to look directly at Oikawa – the sight of whom is making his chest ache, deeply, sadly. "Me neither. This is – it's not even science-fiction shit. This is fantasy shit."

"I mean, do you maybe think…" Oikawa pauses, and then starts again. His voice sounds a little muted, like he almost doesn't want Hajime to hear him. "I read something on the Internet once."

"Oh, good." The customary sarcasm, reserved only for snarking Oikawa, leaks into his tone unbidden.

Oikawa huffs. "Just listen for a second. I read this thing saying that maybe our universe – it's like…" Pausing yet again, Oikawa lifts himself onto his elbows to look around himself, and then sits up and reaches for a book off the top of their coffee table. Hajime stays lying on the floor, watching him.

Oikawa opens the book and holds a single page between his thumb and forefinger. "…it's like this. Our universe. But it's not the only one, there are all these other universes…" He ruffles the pages of the book and they rapidly skirt past his finger. The moon dapples each page with uneven silvery shapes. "…and they're all close together, stacked one after the other like this, but not _quite_ touching. Except sometimes they do." He lets two pages lightly brush against each other so their corners momentarily make contact. "And when they do, and you happen to be right there where they touch, you can just… walk right through." He replaces the book on the coffee table. Hajime doesn't so much as hum in agreement, waiting for Oikawa to continue.

Frowning a little in concentration, Oikawa tilts his head up slightly, trying to remember. "I think they were saying it probably happens all the time, the – the crossing over, but the differences between the universes are so tiny that you don't even notice unless it just _happens_ to be something in your life. It could just be that there was one less leaf on a tree somewhere, or some random person in the world decided to become a school teacher instead of a dancer, or that that one Tuesday in 2004 was overcast instead of sunny." His eyes drop to Hajime's face. "So what I'm getting at is, what if – what if the tiny differences between my universe and yours are that… in mine, you and I ended up together, and… and I'm alive?"

A second ticks by, and then another. Oikawa waits.

"…And this is something you read on the Internet," Hajime says finally.

"Mm."

"But then how are we supposed to believe it?"

Oikawa gives him an incredulous look. "How are you believing _any_ of this? You said I was _dead_. You think I've just – just magically come back to life? And, what – I'm supposed to just accept that you've _forgotten_ we're dating?"

Hajime stares up at the cracks that scribble their way across the ceiling, like something's about to break through any moment. He feels slightly woozy. Perhaps that's why he doesn't question this explanation any more than he does. "A parallel universe, huh."

He hears a soft _fwump_ as Oikawa falls back onto the floor again so they're lying side-by-side once more. "Yeah," he says, though he himself sounds only barely sold on his own theory. "I'm definitely not… your Oikawa Tooru."

Hajime doesn't expect the rush of emotions that immediately sweeps through him, pressing at his heart with a dull, blunt ache, turning the oxygen in his lungs into leaden weights, crushing him from the inside out. He angles his head to look at the figure beside him and meets wide hazel eyes overflowing with moonbeams and exhaustion. Despite himself, Hajime feels the corners of his lips quirk up into a small, wry smile.

"That's the thing," he says, into the silence. "There never was a – he wasn’t. There was no ' _my_ Oikawa Tooru'. Not in this universe.”

* * *

He's awoken by the sandpapery mass of his own tongue and the truly awful crick in his neck. Squinting into the painful brilliance of winter sunshine, Hajime lifts himself heavily into a seated position, wincing as a jolt of pain sparks its way down his spine. There are a few blissful seconds during which he has no idea what time or day or year it is, barely knows who he himself is, doesn't remember anything – the brief amnesia he's been desperately clinging to every morning lately. But, as usual, his memories come trickling through the blankness one by one despite his futile efforts to deny them entry. And so he sits on the floor and remembers that Oikawa is dead.

But today it's followed by a chaser: picture frames and potted plants, universes like the pages of a book. His eyes drop to the floor beside him at once.

Oikawa's rolled over onto his side at some point during the night and has one arm outstretched beneath his head as a makeshift pillow. His hair's dried into a mess of tangled curls spilling over his forehead and closed eyes, below which Hajime can just make out the faintest brush of freckles across his cheeks, flung into high exposure under a square of sunlight. Hajime watches his whole chest rise and fall, rise and fall, its steadiness mesmerising, its constancy intoxicating. He can hear it too – Oikawa's soft breathing. _Breathing_.

Blinking hard, Hajime scrambles to his feet and stumbles towards the bathroom, keeling over by the toilet and dry heaving forcefully. He grips the edges of the basin with trembling fingers as white-hot stars skip dizzyingly across his vision. He feels as though he's barely clinging on to reality; the cold press of the ceramic against his cheek just barely anchors him to the Earth's surface.

It's not unusual for him to have the _it wasn't a dream_ talk to himself these days, but this morning he can't bring himself to confidently say it. Honestly, it seems likelier than not that this entire thing is just one extended fever dream. Maybe he's still in the car on the way back from Miyagi. Maybe he's caught the flu and Hanamaki's already drugged him up. It was cold in the car, wasn't it? It was really cold in the car—

"—jime! _Hajime_!"

There is a hand on his shoulder. He lifts his head, blearily. It's Oikawa – no – not his one – Faux Oikawa – Faux-ikawa? – he rasps out an unsteady laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of his own stream of consciousness and tries his hardest to ignore their point of contact on his shoulder, which is scorchingly hot despite the layer of cotton between them. Instead he gathers every ounce of energy he has left and staggers to his feet. He wobbles a little when he gets upright; Oikawa reflexively reaches out to steady him with two hands at his waist, and that honestly just makes Hajime feel wobblier than before.

"When's the last time you ate?" Oikawa demands.

Hajime considers this. They didn't have time for dinner before leaving Miyagi last night, and had agreed they'd all just cobble together a makeshift late-night snack once they arrived home, which, for _obvious_ reasons, Hajime had not ended up doing. So, lunch yesterday, then? Had they had a proper lunch? He recalls half-heartedly shoving things into his mouth while hurrying around packing last-minute. Perhaps 'proper lunch' is a little generous a term. He glances at the bathroom clock and grimaces: _9.41_.

Oikawa exhales roughly at his incriminatingly long pause. "Okay, you need breakfast," he announces, swivelling Hajime around and prodding him to leave the bathroom. He doesn't move his hands as they walk to the kitchen, as though he's afraid Hajime will collapse within the few metres – though, probably, it isn't all too insensible a precaution.

Hajime sits down at their little kitchen table, fiddling with the mug of water Oikawa places in front of him before going to rummage through the fridge. The mug is a misshapen blue novelty piece, painted kind of shittily with tiny daisies that look more like very poorly fried eggs. Had Faux-ikawa said that his version of this was lavender? He wonders vaguely whether that would make it any less of an eyesore.

He starts at the sound of the stovetop turning on, straightening in his seat. "What are you doing?" he asks supiciously. "You can't cook."

Oikawa freezes for just a fraction of a second, and then smoothly continues pulling slices out of a packaged loaf of bread, placing them on the pan with an exaggerated air of ease. "Who says _I_ can't? Maybe _yours_ couldn't—"

"Bullshit," Hajime snaps, crossing his arms. "I saw you hesitate."

"Okay, well, maybe I just wanted to do something _nice_!" Oikawa whines, gesturing wildly at the now-toasting bread. "Since you don't seem well!"

Hauling himself off his chair, his fight-or-flight instinct having kicked in and utterly defeated his fatigue, Hajime swiftly pushes Oikawa away from the stove and leans down to check the heat. Too high – unsurprisingly. "You know what's 'nice'?" he mutters, hurriedly turning down the flame and then reaching into the fridge for butter. “An intact kitchen.”

Oikawa gasps and places a hand on his heart. “Okay, wow, uncalled for.”

“Besides,” Hajime continues, ignoring him, “I’m not sick or anything. I just... well.” He turns around and gesticulates vaguely in Oikawa’s direction, and then turns back around before he can see Oikawa’s expression change. “...Yeah.”

Oikawa’s leaning back against the table now, watching Hajime hunch over the toast and butter it carefully. His voice is pointedly mild when he speaks. “You're still not sure I'm real.”

“How can – _how_ am I supposed to be sure of that?” Agitated, Hajime opens the cutlery drawer a little more aggressively than needed and pulls out a long pair of chopsticks to flip the toast. “The fact that you’re so _eh_ about this just makes me feel even more like you’re just something I’ve just... imagined up!”

Oikawa is quiet for a moment, but Hajime can hear, loud and clear, the roiling sounds of the million thoughts that are no doubt passing through his head right now. Eventually, he hears Oikawa say from behind him, “Something you’ve imagined up to... cope with my death.”

Not _your_ death _,_ Hajime wants to say meanly, but he quivers silently over the pan instead. Faux-ikawa might be acting like he’s gotten over the initial shock of hearing that particular piece of information, but if he’s being honest with himself, Hajime knows better than to buy that easy, unaffected facade. They’re both still reeling from the whiplash of all of this, he _knows_ that. One of them’s just always been a little better at hiding that sort of thing.

“I’m not _eh_ about it,” Oikawa says, almost inaudibly. He shuffles his slipper-covered feet around slightly. “I’m not. I just... don’t know what else to do besides deal with it. I really – I don’t know any other way.”

Something in his tone – the way it splinters a little at the end, leaving a minuscule crack through which some barely-hemmed cocktail of emotions filters through – makes Hajime turn around instinctively. He falters as their eyes meet, inhaling sharply as any lingering traces of bitterness within him dissipate. Oikawa’s expression might be unremarkable to a stranger, but Hajime is far from being one. He notices now, too, the way Oikawa has his fingers curled tightly over the edge of the table he’s leaning on, the way he looks as though his whole frame has been pulled completely taut.

Every other word in Hajime’s vocabulary is stolen from him: “…sorry.”

Oikawa’s eyes widen minutely and his grip on the table slips a little. “It’s... it’s okay.” He looks like he might be about to say something else, but he pauses abruptly, turning his nose up into the air and sniffing twice. “Is that – your toast—?”

Cursing, Hajime whirls around to see pale grey smoke coiling from the pan, and registers now the telltale sizzle of burning butter. He turns off the heat hurriedly – fans away some of the smoke – hopes to God it hasn't reached the smoke alarm. And then they stand there and survey the charred remnants of breakfast, the demonic fruits of their combined labour and distractability. It smoulders at them innocently. Hajime looks over at Oikawa, and the haughtily raised eyebrow he receives in response is laced with just a little too much of that on-brand smugness.

"Well," says Hajime, flatly, "fuck."

* * *

"It happened when I came out of the bathroom yesterday," says Oikawa, obnoxiously slurping up the last of his instant ramen. "So I sort of thought maybe if I went into the bathroom again I'd be able to go back. But…"

But he'd come into the bathroom that morning to help Hajime and that had clearly changed nothing. Hajime drags his chopsticks through what's left of his ramen soup, breaking up the oil that's gathered at the top, sending blisters of it skimming to the edges of the bowl, where they cling feebly to its ceramic walls. He drags his chopsticks again and scatters them once more.

"Well?" Oikawa prompts him.

"I don't have any ideas, if that's what you're asking," Hajime shrugs. "You're the one who proposed the whole parallel universe thing."

"Yeah, because it's the only explanation," Oikawa retorts, and then snipes, "oh, don't even _bother_ with that again," when Hajime gives him a look clearly intended to say _I can think of a couple of others._ "I'm telling you. I. Am. Real." He snatches Hajime's phone from the tabletop and holds it high above their heads, just beyond Hajime's reach. "What, should we see whether this breaks if I drop it? Hm?"

"Okay, okay, settle down, drama queen," Hajime says hastily, swiping at it. "Fine, let's say you're right about the universes. Didn't you say you can only pass between them when they touch?"

Oikawa nods and tosses the phone back at him. "And if you're in the right place."

Catching it, Hajime glances at it perfunctorily as the screen lights up with a text message from Hanamaki. "So then, what, we _hope really hard_ that it happens again here? And just – wait until it does?"

The reality of that prospect, and what intuitively feel like truly terrible odds, take a second to sink in. They stare at one another a little blankly. Then Oikawa says, "Well, like I said. It probably happens all the time. Unnoticeably. You might've passed through a few yourself. Maybe in some other universe where, I don't know, the Prince of Wales uses a cream hand towel instead of a white one, another Oikawa Tooru is freaking out because you've disappeared."

 _If that Oikawa Tooru is alive._ Oikawa catches his eye, seems to read his mental interjection. "Or Makki is freaking out. Whatever," he amends as he stands up.

Makki. Remembering the text, Hajime unlocks his phone, letting Oikawa take both their bowls to the sink. Hanamaki's sent him a string of messages asking if he wants company for lunch, that he and Matsukawa can come by anytime, that he has to drop off Hajime's scarf that he left in the car last night anyway. It's no trouble, Hanamaki writes, they _want_ to come by.

They want to come by… here. To the flat.

The bowls clatter inelegantly into the sink and Oikawa sighs in annoyance, hopping deftly back from the sink as drops of soup jump at him. Hajime looks at him, looks back down at his phone, looks up again to gape a little vacantly at the visibly living, breathing Oikawa who is now squinting at the edge of one of the bowls he dropped to check for chips.

It might be fine. If Oikawa is just a vision after all, Hanamaki and Matsukawa won't even see him, so as long as Hajime keeps his mouth shut they won't know any better. If anything, it might be a good way for him to confirm whether he's losing it after all. If they walk into the flat and don't react, he'll just have a nice lunch with them, chat for a bit, and then head _straight_ to the doctor's.

But.

But on the tiny sliver of a chance that Oikawa _isn't_ just a vision…

Closing his eyes in resignation, wondering whether he's being completely stupid now to even entertain all of this, Hajime calls out to Oikawa. "Hey. I think Hanamaki and Matsukawa might be coming over later. Stay in one of the bedrooms."

Not even acknowledging the instruction, Oikawa gives him a look of surprise, lowering the bowl back into the sink (carefully this time). "Mattsun's here? Isn't he in Miyagi?"

"Yeah, he came down with us after, your, um." They've already talked repeatedly about it at this point. _Why_ is it still this tricky. "The funeral."

Oikawa pauses and then flicks the tap on delicately. Water gushes over his hands. It must be freezing, but he doesn't so much as flinch. "Ah," he says, his tone unreadable, "that makes sense. I suppose they're coming over because they don't want you to have to be alone in the flat, then."

Hajime swallows. "Something like that, yeah."

The water's still running, its soft rush a strange relief in the silence. It's one of those rare moments where Hajime genuinely feels completely unsure of what Oikawa's next move will be. Water drips off of Oikawa's fingertips – they're beginning to blush in the cold.

When he finally speaks, his voice is unexpectedly soft. "They're good friends, aren't they? They're the type of people you want to rely on."

Startled, Hajime drags his gaze from Oikawa's motionless hands to his face. Oikawa's staring down at his hands, too, but he turns his head abruptly as though sensing the movement of Hajime's centre of attention, and his eyes are a little too shiny to simply be reflecting the morning sunlight still dousing the room. He himself seems somewhat overwhelmed by the emotions that appear to have crept up on him without warning. But as Hajime watches, the edges of his mouth quirk up into a tiny, honest smile, as though some invisible pressure – some murky disquietude – has eased itself just a touch.

"I'm really glad you have them," he says, and Hajime understands. "I'm really glad they're looking out for you. Hajime."

Hajime holds his breath. Oikawa smiles again, leans over, and turns the water off at last.

* * *

Hanamaki and Matsukawa have brought convenience store bento boxes and beer cans with them. "Food of the gods, I know," Matsukawa says wryly, as Hanamaki tosses Hajime his scarf. "You're welcome. Hey – can I use your bathroom?"

Hajime nods absentmindedly, taking the plastic bag and emptying its contents one by one onto the coffee table as Matsukawa ambles off to the bathroom. Hanamaki sinks into the couch, takes a can, opens it, and offers it wordlessly to Hajime. His eyes fall on the coffee table book that had been used last night as a makeshift prop for for the parallel-universe-hypothesis demonstration; Oikawa has left it half-open, with its pages face down on the glass.

"Been reading since you got back?" Hanamaki says, as Hajime takes the beer.

Just as he's about to respond, Hajime's beaten to it by the telltale thump of a foot hitting something in Oikawa's bedroom, followed by a muffled but dangerously distinct _ow!_ before the idiot seems to catch himself and fall completely silent. Hajime glances nervously at Hanamaki. Hanamaki's straightened on the couch, frowning in the direction of the closed bedroom door. "Did you hear that?" he says slowly.

Reflexively, Hajime says, "Hm? What?"

"I just thought – well, it kind of sounded like…" Hanamaki trails off, staring at the bedroom door as though waiting for it to burst into flames, before shaking his head uncertainly and giving Hajime a feeble grin. "Never mind, it's nothing. I was probably just hearing stuff."

Hajime tries his best to return the grin, an admittedly difficult feat given how hard his heart has started beating. This has got to be it, right? The confirmation he didn't even know he was hoping for. Hanamaki heard him. _Hanamaki heard Faux-ikawa._

The bathroom door opens and they both jump a little. Hanamaki laughs self-consciously as Matsukawa comes to join them, and he slides off the couch so they're all seated on the floor around the coffee table. Whether he hasn't noticed the nervous tension, or he is simply doing them the favour of overlooking it, Matsukawa calmly opens himself a can of beer with a loud, frothy hiss. "Come on, then," he says, opening the lid of Hajime's bento and handing him a pair of disposable chopsticks. "Wouldn't want the fine dining getting cold."

During the thirty-five minutes it takes them to finish slowly nibbling at their bento boxes, they manage to talk about pretty much everything except _it_. In fact they cover an almost impressively encyclopaedic breadth of subject matters – eagerly latching onto whatever tangential topic arises from the last, happy to traipse any conversational trail that, at least at first glance, doesn't appear to lead to the one they'll inevitably end up at. But soon the last piece of karaage is eaten and the sun shifts to cast long mid-afternoon shadows across the floorboards and their outstretched legs. With this, somehow, strangely, it becomes impossible to ignore. And Hanamaki is the first to pull out his Jenga block.

"You know, I just couldn't cry, at the funeral," he says quietly to no one in particular, with zero pretense of an organic lead-in. "It just didn't feel real, you know? Like, obviously you never really think anybody around you is gonna die, but he was… it seemed like that stuff couldn't even touch him. Sometimes he'd get this look in his eyes, when he was working on an assignment question everyone else had given up on, or that time his ex drunk-called him crying about her parents and he was so _determined_ to help her feel better… and he just barely seemed human like the rest of us, when he was like that. I couldn't understand it." He lets his head fall back onto the couch and stares up at the ceiling, releasing a soft sigh. Matsukawa catches Hajime's gaze briefly as Hanamaki adds in a rush, "I kind of wish I'd just asked him. About that, and about everything else I sometimes wondered about him. I really didn't understand that much about him, and, you know, maybe if I'd known I didn't have much _time_ —" His voice fractures slightly, and he inhales sharply, cutting himself off with a shaky sip of beer.

Matsukawa watches him silently for a moment, twirling his can around its bottom edge on the coffee table. Then he makes a low, gentle sound in his throat; as though to confirm his voice is still working properly, won't shut off on him now. His dark eyes follow the movement of a drop of condensation down the side of his can. "…He really wanted to travel, didn't he?" he says, and though it's posed like a question, there's no trace of any actual doubt in his tone. "Somewhere hot with loads of beaches. Rio, Sydney – California maybe…" He says this almost wonderingly, as though unsure what to do with these sunlit travel plans of Oikawa's that will never eventuate, simply floating half-formed in the world like the frayed edge of a tattered thread. As though in awe that Rio and Sydney and California could go on existing without an Oikawa to journey to them.

Hajime is hyper-aware of the shallowness of his own breathing. He can feel both of their eyes on him – it's his turn now. They've each said the odd, idiosyncratic thoughts about Oikawa that've been consuming them each for the past fortnight or so, and they want to let him say his – want to hear his. So all of their cards are laid bare between these empty cans and stained chopsticks.

_I loved him, actually. I was in love with him. Since forever. I just didn't ever end up figuring out how to tell him._

There: the idiosyncratic thought about Oikawa that's been consuming him and has absolutely no place being allowed out into the world to wreak its havoc now. He won't do it. He mustn't.

He's not that selfish.

"That funeral," he hears himself say, distantly, "was freezing. I thought my toes would fall off. He seriously died at the crappiest time of year."

Matsukawa blinks at him, and Hanamaki huffs out a choked, watery sound, and then it is as though a switch flips and floods the room in stage lights and all of a sudden Hanamaki is crying into his beer. "God, he – he did, didn't he?" he gasps, through shuddering sobs that flick into breathless, sheepish laughter at their tail end. "And r-right before exams, too! The ego on that fucker, I s-swear…"

The tears are coming hard and fast now, running down his cheeks, and it's only when Hajime cracks a smile and tastes salt at its rim that he realises he's crying too. Oh – well – okay. He supposes that's not so strange. Blindly, he reaches out and finds their hands, grabs them both; Hanamaki's cold and a little damp in his left, Matsukawa's trembling in his right. The room shifts kaleidoscopically through his tears as he squeezes so hard that his nails may well leave half-moons pressed painfully into his friends' skin. But neither of them complain, and so he just squeezes harder, so that maybe the only sensation any of them will be aware of is the way their blood pumps through the tangle of their fingers, demanding that they feel its cruel cadence, demanding they feel its life force.

* * *

Faux-ikawa is just as terrible at chores, just as high-maintenance, just as generous with the sassing and teasing and complaining. "Obviously," he says with an eye-roll, when Hajime points this out a little tetchily one morning while vacuuming under his princely, propped-up legs. "We _are_ the same person. Don't you know how parallel universes work?"

"It's okay if you have a _couple_ of differences," Hajime mutters back, darkly, picking up a mug Oikawa's left on the coffee table with its final dregs of tea drying out inside. "I won't mind. _Really_."

Oikawa catches his eye and smirks, shooting him a meaningful wink, and Hajime's heart stutters. Yes – there is that _minor_ additional difficulty: dealing with the fact that this Oikawa is comfortable with him in a way that is both subtly and significantly different, and can't seem to shake some of the habits of that dynamic. Hajime had nearly had a heart attack when Oikawa ever-so-casually came into his bedroom that second night and crawled into bed with him, and had kicked at him so uncharitably in his shock that he'd actually felt kind of bad about it afterwards as Oikawa rolled onto the floor with a yelp. After a pained reminder that they were _not_ together and so, no, they were _not_ sharing a bed in this universe, he'd sent a pouty Oikawa back to his own bedroom and then had promptly proceeded to lie awake half the night willing his pulse to _calm the fuck down_.

But there's also the incredibly natural way in which Oikawa will sometimes lean in for a kiss when Hajime's popping out for groceries; the way he'll fleetingly touch Hajime's arm or the back of his neck when he's brushing past or murmuring something absentmindedly; the way he yawns and says _morning, babe_ when he stumbles out of his bedroom as though summoned by the smell of toast and coffee. These are all wonderfully, each in their own unique, special way, _awful._

Here's the most awful thing, though: the indisputable fact that Oikawa in any universe is ultimately (no matter how much he pretends he isn't) deeply considerate, and painfully observant, and so will apologise lightly whenever he catches himself doing any of the dozens of tiny things that make Hajime flinch away wordlessly. All in all, it's starting to feel a little like an extremely mocking free trial of what could have been – a free trial Hajime never asked for.

Unfortunately for him, it seems this mess of thoughts is apparent enough on his face for – see above – _painfully_ observant Oikawa to notice them. They're at the supermarket one evening and Oikawa's unthinkingly wrapped a hand around Hajime's waist, crowding him from behind to grab the jam at the very back of the top shelf he was reaching for, and Hajime freezes and Oikawa steps away swiftly and apologises and Hajime mutters _it's okay_ and awkwardly averts his gaze – their whole routine as usual. Oikawa leans over to put the jam in their trolley and then straightens with a slight furrow in his brow.

"There it is again," he says, tilting his head quizzically. The bobble on his beanie flops to one side. He's completely bundled up – their agreement is that if he wants to come outside, he has to obscure every possibly distinguishing feature about him, including, of course, his hair. "That look on your face."

Too quickly, Hajime says, "What look?"

Oikawa doesn't answer him immediately and Hajime braces himself, looming anxiety creeping up on him. But Oikawa doesn't say anything else about it for the remainder of their shopping trip, looking lost in thought as he trails behind Hajime, who continues tensely weaving his way through the aisles and ticking off everything on their list with what he personally thinks is commendable resoluteness. It's only long after they've bagged everything and started the walk home that Oikawa finally seems to decide what he wants to say.

And what he says is this: "You loved him, too."

The world see-saws. Hajime stops dead in the middle of the street.

"What?" he says faintly, his grip on the shopping bags slipping.

"That part's not different," says Oikawa, the certainty in his voice growing by the word. "You, and the Iwaizumi Hajime in my universe." He drags Hajime by the wrist out of the way of a passerby and searches his face. "You both love Oikawa Tooru. Don't you?"

His ears are ringing slightly, actually, so perhaps he's misheard. Because how on Earth could the same Oikawa Tooru who failed to notice this for _so many years_ have suddenly dropped in from another universe and figured this out in the space of a few weeks?

"How did you," he starts weakly, but his voice buckles under the weight of the words. He tries again. "I never – he didn't—"

"No, I didn't figure him out myself either," Oikawa says. "I never would've realised if you – if _he_ hadn't told me. But since we started dating, I realised what that one expression of his I'd never been able to place actually was." His breath is warm between them, sending clouds of condensation into the crisp night air. "You've got it on your face right now. That look he has when he's trying to hide just how much he really loves me." His voice softens, and he reaches out carefully, fumbling to wind an extra loop of Hajime's scarf around his neck with mittened hands. "Like he loves me so much that his heart is splitting open. You, too – right?"

A hush seems to fall over Tokyo as the frigid wind screams in Hajime's ears. His lungs feel totally deprived of air. Distantly, the flickering neons of the city wink and blur into one another, a dizzying mosaic of crimsons and cyans and violets that is surely the perfectly fitting backdrop for this luminescent fever dream. What is his life? _Really_ , what is Iwaizumi Hajime's life right now?

"When did he tell you?" he says, his voice sounding strangled to his own ears.

"Christmas Eve of our second year," murmurs Oikawa, "when I lost my phone after that faculty party and we ran around half of Tokyo looking for it."

And of course it was then, _of course_ , because that's the closest Hajime's ever gotten to saying it. Alcohol and adrenaline will do that to you, make your shared breathless laughter and stumbling sprint across the snow-dampened city feel all the more like they just might mean something, and of course the fact that it was well past one a.m. and the world seems minutely kinder and more full of possibilities at that hour – he'd struggled to bite back the words more than he ever had before – seriously wondered in the moment what the worst that could happen was. Oikawa had beamed at him over his shoulder with his eyes full of Christmas lights and exhilaration as he dashed on ahead, slipping precariously on the glittering road, dissolving into helpless giggles. And the entire city had simply… fallen away.

"Oh my God," Hajime had breathed, his hands tingling, "I'm in love with you, Oikawa Tooru."

Oikawa had yelled back drunkenly from the other side of the crossing, "Huh? What did you say?"

And – seized momentarily by an otherworldly panic, some stupid, blindingly violent doubt – Hajime had croaked back, "Stop running! You're gonna trip, stupid!"

"He yelled at me across the empty road," Oikawa says now, his eyes far away, a smile playing absently at his lips. "I think it was – _I said I'm in love with you, stupid!_ – which is sort of weirdly fitting for us, don't you think?"

Every cell in Hajime's body feels aflame, on the cusp of disintegration. "And you? What – what did you say?" He doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to hear it. And yet, senselessly, urgently, achingly, he _has_ to hear it.

Oikawa's eyes return to him. His hands are still hanging onto the ends of Hajime's scarf. With his voice perfectly steady, and almost unbearably kind, he says, "I'm in love with you, too."

Hajime's vision wavers, and he feels his face crumple; can do absolutely nothing to stop it. Oikawa encircles him in his arms without a word and brings him close. Into the bristly wool of Oikawa's thick cardigan, knitted with the overwhelming scent of home, Hajime mumbles brokenly, "So if I had told him – back then – maybe he would still be—"

"No, stop that," Oikawa says firmly, tightening his hug slightly. "Don't do that to yourself. There are quite literally infinite other differences that could have led to that accident." Hajime hears him sigh quietly, the sound a little sad. "There are _definitely_ hundreds of universes out there where you didn't confess back then, and both of you are still alive and well and living out the best friendship ever. You just happen to be in this one. That isn't your fault."

Hajime twists his fingers into Oikawa's cardigan and clings on as though it is his life raft. Oikawa's stroking his hair now, soothingly, and the gesture feels chastely affectionate more than intimate. How long have they been standing here on the pavement as the world bustles on into the night around them? No more than a few minutes, surely; but Hajime swears it's been a lifetime.

And – okay. So maybe he can convince himself he wasn't responsible for that particular butterfly effect. Maybe he buys that the accident was simply one that was written into this universe. But what about the sheer fact that he didn't tell him _I love you_ anyway? What about the reality he's now faced with that he robbed Oikawa of the chance to know that before he was gone? What about all the other chances throughout their lives that he simply threw away? What if this Oikawa had loved him too, and had left his side never aware that _he wasn't the only one?_

"It isn't your fault," Oikawa whispers, and Hajime desperately, desperately wants to believe him.

* * *

Matsukawa's birthday comes out of nowhere, as birthdays always seem to for Hajime. Oikawa tells him primly to mail over a new set of watercolours, so Hajime mails over a new set of watercolours, and in return gets a message of thanks that so poorly veils his surprise at the fact that Hajime's managed to pick something decent that it's almost insulting. ("Shut up," he tells Oikawa, when the other reads Matsukawa's text message over Hajime's shoulder and gleefully opens his mouth to no doubt make a huge deal out of it as usual.)

The arrival of March also marks the passing of about a month since Oikawa's arrival. They're no closer to finding any alternative ways for him to get home besides their current approach (Waiting Around and Hoping), but honestly some of these days Hajime almost entirely forgets that they're supposed to be actively keeping an eye out for possible openings or ideas. The two of them have fallen into an easy rhythm that pretty closely resembles how Hajime had been living with Oikawa before anyway. It's almost as though he was never gone. He unthinkingly voices this to Oikawa once, and then immediately wishes he hadn't when Oikawa's eyes widen slightly in response.

He doesn't have time to dwell on it, though, because Hanamaki chooses that very day to grace him with a surprise visit. He's carrying a box of profiteroles from the same bakery Hajime had bought his gift from. "Though I'm not sure if you deserve these," Hanamaki snipes, a little pettily. "I heard you sent Matsukawa watercolours. _Watercolours_."

"He's been – practising since the end of last year," Hajime says, stiltedly repeating the explanation Oikawa had exasperatedly given him when he'd asked why they were buying Matsukawa watercolours when the guy had already bought himself some a while ago. "Uh, and the ones he bought, they run out pretty quickly—"

"I mean, I know _that_." Hanamaki rolls his eyes and ungraciously dumps the box of profiteroles into his arms, giving him a suspicious look. "It's just not like _you_ to think of that, president of the Mediocre Presents Only club. Even though the profiteroles were admittedly good, hence my offering."

Oikawa's been safely tucked away into his bedroom, but this conversation is veering a little too close to the truth for comfort. "Why don't you sit down?" Hajime says briskly. "I'll make coffee."

Hanamaki drops into one of the chairs at the kitchen table and props his chin up with one hand, watching Hajime waft around from cupboard to cupboard. Hajime has the kitchen window thrown all the way open, and a faint breeze drifts in as they wait for the kettle to boil, filling the kitchen with the perfume of March flowers.

"It really is spring already, huh?" Hanamaki muses, looking out the window at the pale blue stretch of sky beyond.

Hajime pours sachets of instant coffee into two mugs and fills them both with hot water. "I guess so."

As he brings the mugs over to the table, Hanamaki says, "Oikawa really liked it when the cherry blossoms started blooming. He was weirdly sentimental about that kind of stuff. Maybe it's because he dated so many sentimental types."

Hajime glances over at him quickly. He wouldn't describe it as being an offhand or blasé comment – not by any stretch – but there is a kind of undefinable tranquility about it, at least when compared to the leaden sense of acute tragedy that used to drip inextricably from all of their passing mentions of Oikawa. Hanamaki is blowing into his mug with a sad, wistful smile peeking over its rim, but he hasn't totally deflated beyond recovery for the rest of the day. He hasn't burst into tears.

As though reading his mind, Hanamaki says, "I still do cry. Obviously. It's only been like a month and a half, you know." He takes a cautious sip of coffee and winces, blowing at it a little more. "I just cry a tiny bit less frequently, and for a tiny bit less time when I do. Sometimes something random will set me off. Seeing a volleyball somewhere, happening upon socks in his favourite colour, stuff like that. Because I don't miss him any less than a month ago." He tries the coffee again, cautiously, and sighs contentedly this time – it seems to have cooled enough not to scald him. "I think I'm just starting to – I don't know, sort of… get used to the feeling of missing him." A few strands of his hair are floating in the floral-fragranced zephyr passing through the kitchen, rosy-brown traced in flaxen backlighting. "If that makes sense."

It does make sense. But it also feels like somewhat foreign of a concept: getting used to the feeling of missing Oikawa… if anything, hasn't the very opposite been true for him?

"How about you?" Hanamaki adds, when Hajime doesn't say anything. "Been doing okay?"

Hajime somehow can't meet his gaze. He stares down instead at the mug he has both his hands wrapped around, at the foamy supernova swirling at the top of his coffee, at the shitty daisies on a background that is blue and not lavender.

"Yeah," he says shortly, and then he talks about something else.

* * *

It is some ambiguous, ungodly hour a week or so after this when Hajime first happens upon Oikawa in the middle of a clandestine research session. How it happens is this: they'd finished up a Netflix movie earlier that evening and Hajime had headed off to bed first with a slight headache, only to wake in the middle of the night absolutely craving a cold can of Sprite. So he staggers to his feet and totters out of his bedroom, expecting to feel his way blindly through complete darkness to the fridge – instead, he finds himself met by the bluish glow of a laptop screen, emanating from the direction of the couch.

He squints to bring the couch into focus. "Oi…kawa?"

Oikawa looks up from the screen. He has his glasses perched low on his nose; it luridly mirrors the text of whatever it is he's reading. "Oh, hey. What are you doing up?"

"I came to grab a drink," Hajime says, rubbing at his eyes and approaching the couch. "What are _you_ doing?" He's close enough by now to see Oikawa's screen himself, though, and even a cursory glance is enough for him to grasp its contents. "Are you… researching? Parallel universes?"

"Mm," Oikawa says, sitting up and stretching his arms out behind him with a barely-stifled yawn. He adds nothing else, just keeps scrolling the page, copy-pasting sentences into what looks like a sixteen-page word document he has open in another desktop. When did he even put that together?

Hajime stares at the indigo-illuminated contours of his profile, feeling oddly torn. He senses there is a right thing for him to say now that he's caught Oikawa in the middle of something he's clearly been doing for several nights now. They both are aware of this, but it's his move as to whether he'll acknowledge it. Oikawa's expression gives him no clues as to what that 'right thing' to say might be.

"It's late," he says, finally. "Go to bed. You don't have to lose sleep over this."

Oikawa's hand stills on the touchpad. _Wrong._ "I'm not losing sleep because I'm doing this." He seems to be speaking more at his screen than Hajime himself. "I'm doing this because I can't sleep."

"I – what?" He's even less sure what he's supposed to say to that, so he blunders on impulsively. Anything feels better than each additional millisecond of creaking silence. "Look, just leave it for now. I'll even – I'll help you Google tomorrow, properly this time – if that'll make you feel better."

Oikawa makes an unpleasant, grating noise in the back of his throat and abruptly closes his laptop, just a little too hard. It plunges them into darkness and Oikawa speaks before Hajime's eyes have even finished adjusting. " _If it'll make me feel better_ ," he says, coldly. "Gosh, you're so considerate. Thanks ever so much."

Hajime bristles at the mocking edge to his tone. "What do you _want_ me to say?"

"I don't 'want' you to say anything." Slowly, shapes begin to take form again, shadowy and vague in the thin moonlight. Oikawa pushes his laptop roughly onto the couch and rises to his feet so he's facing Hajime; his silhouette is tense and shuttered. "I'm just beginning to wonder whether you actually want me to figure out a way to get home."

"What the fuck?" Hajime blurts out. "Why wouldn't I – what are you talking about?"

Oikawa's eyes flash. "Don't pretend the thought hasn't occurred to you lately. _Oh, maybe this isn't so bad after all!_ " His voice climbs in pitch, wavering. " _He's here, may as well make the most of it!_ I'm not an idiot, I can see it in your face!"

Hajime blinks rapidly, the initial blow of the unforeseen accusation giving way to prickles of angry humiliation. "Okay, yeah, so it's been nice having him back," he says hotly, "because I'm human, sorry. What's so wrong about that?"

"What's wrong," Oikawa replies, clipping into the end of Hajime's question, "is that I'm _not him_. Just in case you forgot. 'He' is not 'back'." Beneath the decidedly icy surface of his words, a barely discernable hurt snatches at the carefully controlled veneer, fighting to be heard. Hajime might've even missed it if all of his senses weren't completely zeroed in on just Oikawa's scathing voice right now. "You don't get to use me as your coping mechanism, Iwaizumi. And you _certainly_ don't get to use me as his replacement."

Hajime barks out a wounded laugh and takes a step away from him, flinging his arms out wide open. "Go on, then!" he cries out, scornfully. "Leave. Go back. See if I try to stop you." When Oikawa doesn't move an inch, staring at him stonily, he lets his arms drop limply to his sides, breathing hard as he takes another stumbling half-step back. "Exactly. I'm not the one keeping you stuck here. I'm sorry that things aren't going to plan, but _you know_ we never had any idea what we were doing with this, and that's _not_ on me."

The kitchen clock ticks feebly in the bitter silence that follows. Hajime closes his eyes and scrubs a tremulous hand over them. He wants nothing more than for both of them to take back everything they've said, but they're out there now: the parts that were fired to injure and the parts that might be a little true, just the same. All knotted up in a grisly, untouchable mess between them.

This is why he's always settled for swallowing down his words where he had the choice.

"We're not getting anywhere in this state," he says wearily. "Go to bed, Oikawa. Sleep."

He turns on his heel before he can do anything else he'll regret, goes to shut himself into his room, and then lies wide awake, staring up blankly at the ceiling, until the darkness ebbs away and dawn stains his room the colour of blood oranges and honey.

* * *

They don't acknowledge it. Whether or not that's the right decision is a question left unanswered. But something shifts minutely between them after that night. They're careful around one another in a way they never were even at the very beginning of this entire debacle, not quite treading on broken glass but perhaps glass on the verge of breaking if they step a little too hard. There are moments when this is simply too smothering to bear in the same space, and so Hajime finds himself at Hanamaki's more and more often as March folds into its second half and their conversations become increasingly taken up by their plans for the next semester of uni.

He arrives back at the flat after one of these chats to see Oikawa stretched out on his stomach across the couch, reading through something on his laptop as usual. He glances up when he hears Hajime come in, giving him a customary quirk of a smile, before he double takes and lifts himself into a sitting position.

"What?" Hajime says self-consciously, toeing off his shoes.

Oikawa stands and approaches him in the doorway, reaching for his head. Hajime freezes as Oikawa gingerly touches his hair and pulls something out of it. He unfurls his hand between them; a slightly wrinkled, blush-pink petal sits in his palm.

"Oh," says Hajime. "Right. Thanks."

Oikawa's still staring down at his own palm. He doesn't look up when he says, "We said we'd go cherry blossom viewing together this year."

When Hajime doesn't respond, he lifts his head up jerkily, his tongue flicking out to brush over his lips once. "…Sorry. That was insensitive."

"No, it's – fine." Hajime rubs at the back of his neck a little awkwardly, wishing he'd just brushed himself down properly before coming into the flat. "That sounds like it would be, um, nice."

Giving him a fleeting smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes, Oikawa turns and walks over to the window, opening it all the way in one smooth motion and letting the petal flutter out of his hand onto the street below. Something twists in Hajime's stomach at the sight of Oikawa's back, his hand outstretched beyond the weathered pane, an early spring wind tousling his hair and ruffling the thin cotton of his shirt. He realises he's holding his breath; the moment feels somehow spellbound, like even the sound of his own exhalation would be a terrible intrusion into it.

It feels wrong to think of him as beautiful right now. But then he supposes he always has.

Hajime allows himself to breathe, once, shallowly. Was Oikawa right? Has a part of him been harbouring a murky, private wish that things will continue on with this indefiniteness? He doesn't want to believe himself capable of such self-absorption, but then what is this excruciating, guilty ache that overcomes him sometimes when he looks at Oikawa, when Oikawa talks about his universe, where he was alive and in love and had plans to go cherry blossom viewing? What else can it even be?

There's simply no room in his brain, at this point, for him to think about it with any sort of lucidity.

* * *

He starts going out for walks alone to clear his head, leaving Oikawa to read or research or sip on tea in the solitude of the flat. He thinks of it as a service to both of them; space is a thing that seems oddly indispensable between lately, a concept he never in his life thought he'd come to associate with his friendship with Oikawa.

It's about eight or nine days into this routine when they have their run-in. Hajime's happened to halve his walking route that morning, having wanted to stop by the supermarket to pick up some milk on his way home, and he's nearing the flat with milk in hand when he sees an unusually bundled-up figure walking in his direction amongst a sea of strangers all dressed for spring.

Eyes widening, he picks up his pace until he's near enough to grab at the sleeve of that familiar knitted cardigan, tugging urgently so they stumble out of the way of the pedestrian traffic and onto the raised storefront of a convenience store. "What are you _doing_ here?" he demands, more panicky than angry. "You didn't tell me you were – what if someone had seen you?!"

Oikawa lowers the top of the scarf that's covering half his face, and Hajime only now registers that his eyes are a little glazed over, rimmed with red. "I'm sorry," Oikawa says, somewhat faintly. "I just – it's nearly going on two months, and – I was alone in there _so much_ lately, without you – without him—"

Caught off-guard by the unexpected vulnerability in his expression, Hajime hitches the plastic bag further up his arm into the crook of his elbow so he can reach out and grab both of Oikawa's shoulders. "Hey. It's okay. It's okay, I'm not mad. Are you alright?"

"Yes," says Oikawa automatically, and then, his voice faltering, "no. Not really, no. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm being – this isn't fair to you."

Hajime says, "Fuck that," though really what he feels like fucking is himself, for being so goddamn _stupid_ all the time. _How_ did he miss this? How did he miss how deeply unhappy Oikawa really was, all those times he simply seemed like he was acting distant, those times he simply seemed resentful? How did he manage to make every one of those outbursts about himself, when Oikawa is the one being held hostage in this universe, where his things aren't his things and his home isn't his home and his lover keeps reminding him he's dead and then ditching him in an empty flat?

"Fuck that," he says again, as steadily as he can manage through the rush of dismay, the mounting self-loathing. "Fuck being fair to me. You're always fair to me. _I'm_ sorry. Okay? I'm really, really sorry." He breathes deeply, tilting his head all the way back so the sun blinds him momentarily and the sky spins. He waits until he feels as though he has filled his lungs just enough to right his head again and face Oikawa. And then he says the thing that he probably should have said all along: "We're gonna get you home. We _will_. I promise."

He waits for that now-familiar ache to hit. But it doesn't come. As he watches Oikawa's eyes clear at his firm but totally unsubstantiated reassurance, a muffled sob wracking his swaddled frame, it isn't some shadowy jealousy or remorse that flurries through him but a burst of honest relief. Seeing the restlessness that he hadn't realised was constantly underlying Oikawa's expression finally break up a little, Hajime is genuinely, immensely relieved. He _does_ want Oikawa to get home. He wants him to go home, and be happy again, in a way Hajime knows he can never be happy here, with him. He knows this, because—

_Ah._

That ache, that longing: was it something not so sinister after all?

The world stops pirouetting so damn fast; the whistling in his ears dies down. Something quietly slots into place.

"I miss him," Hajime hears himself say, in a strange, raw voice. "I thought I couldn't be, because… you're here. But I miss him." He grips Oikawa's shoulders a little harder as their eyes meet, and they're standing so close now, close enough to read every flickering emotion in one another's irises. Hajime's throat tightens around the words he's avoided saying for so long. "I miss _him_." He sucks in a stunned breath. "So much."

Oikawa just breathes, "I know," and then at once they're falling into one another, holding on for dear life, intertwined safely, securely. The ground feels solid beneath their feet and the air is sweet and warm. Oikawa's arms are unfaltering around him. Perhaps in any universe, Hajime muses, they will invariably slot perfectly together in this way – in the end. It is simply what they are.

They walk the rest of the way back to the flat hand-in-hand. The milk goes in the fridge; the cardigan and scarf on the coat rack. Hajime makes them pasta for lunch and they sit at the table twirling it with forks in one hand and Googling on their phones with the other. They talk. They hypothesise. And then, when the sky dims and paints them with plummy twilight, they go into Hajime's room, curl up side-by-side in his bed, and drift off more easily than they have in two months.

Hajime wakes to – confusingly – the smell of eggs. A quick pat-down of the empty space on the bed beside him tells him everything he needs to know. Lumbering out of his bedroom, still half-asleep but conscious enough to head straight for the kitchen, Hajime comes face to face with Oikawa, who swerves to avoid hitting him with two plates of sunny-side-ups and toast.

"Morning," Oikawa says, cheerily.

Hajime surveys the plates sceptically. "Did you really make that?"

Giving him an indignant look, Oikawa says, "Yeah, and I only wasted, like, three eggs before I got it right." He brandishes the plates close to Hajime's chin. "I was just bringing them to you."

"Breakfast in bed, cooked entirely by Oikawa Tooru," Hajime remarks, raising an eyebrow. "There's one I haven't heard before."

And just because it's particularly bright and nice that day, and he's hungry, and only three eggs have been wasted, he indulges Oikawa; they sit cross-legged on his bed, balancing their plates in their laps and discussing what they ought to work on for the rest of the morning. Hajime offers to go talk to a physics professor at uni. Oikawa beams at him, but tells him to wait until semester starts back up to start bothering the teaching staff. They can try emailing some of the people who wrote those websites, he suggests instead. Hajime nods and says _let's do it._

Inevitably, though, one of them spills some yolk. Groaning, Hajime shoos Oikawa from the bed, sending him off to clear their plates, and strips the sheets to toss them into the laundry. Well. It's probably about time to give them a wash anyway, he tells himself with a sigh. Spring cleaning and all that. Bundling up the sheets in his arms, he staggers out of the room with his line of sight eighty percent obscured, and immediately collides with something in his way.

"Move, you oaf," he calls out, to no response. Frowning, Hajime peeks around the edge of his sheet mountain to see, as he'd expected, Oikawa standing in front of him – but he doesn't even seem to have noticed that Hajime had bumped into him, staring in the direction of the kitchen as though transfixed, his hands still loosely holding onto their plates.

"Oikawa?" Hajime tries again, nudging him with his foot. "Hey. You good?"

He follows Oikawa's line of sight – the fridge? No; the table. But, obviously given that they didn't eat there, there's nothing to see on it except two mugs they've left abandoned there: the sturdy free one they'd scooped up during their uni's Open Day last year, and of course that ugly favourite of theirs, fried-egg-daisies littered across uneven painstrokes of—

—the sheets spill out of Hajime's grip—

—lavender.

_The mug is lavender._

A quick glance at Oikawa tells Hajime he's a moment away from dropping the plates, so he swiftly steps over to take them both and stack them on the coffee table for the time being. His heartbeat is roaring in his ears, but he forces himself to compose himself, at least however much he can manage, because oh my God this is happening, it's happening _right now_ , and at least one of them needs to have his wits about him so they don't absolutely blow this chance.

"Okay, Oikawa," he says, keeping his voice as calm as possible. "So, we obviously are – uh – a little underprepared for this actual part. But I just need you to tell me you're holding up okay right now."

Oikawa turns wild, overwhelmed eyes on him, as though finally perceiving his presence. "Can you – see it too?"

He nods, and a shiver seems to dance along Oikawa's spine. "The point of contact must be around there," Hajime says. "I'd even bet the whole kitchen is yours right now."

"How are you not freaking out?" Oikawa whispers, studying his face. "That's a – you're looking at a _parallel universe_ right now."

Hajime cracks a grin and says, "Yeah, I know. Don't worry, I'll have loads of time to freak out about it after you go."

Oikawa starts slightly at the word _go_ and looks back at the mug, seeming awestruck. There's nothing to visibly distinguish the exact space where the universes touch – no bubble-like film, no warping, no distortion. Just their own awareness that _something_ is there, and on its other side is something else entirely. It's all – incredibly surreal.

Without taking his eyes off the mug, Oikawa asks, barely audibly, "What do I do now?"

"Well," says Hajime, "I suppose you just walk right through."

"How long will they be touching?"

"Who knows?" Having come to the conclusion that Oikawa has no plans to stroll through boldly on his own terms, Hajime finally just takes him by the arm, leading him briskly towards the table. "And that's exactly why we can't waste any time. Come on. You're doing this."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Oikawa grabs him so they lurch to a halt just before crossing into the threshold of the kitchen. Wide-eyed and tense, he turns to look properly at Hajime, not letting go yet. "Is this seriously it? Right now? Already?"

Hajime quips, "I mean, I wouldn't exactly call two months 'already'," but sobers slightly when Oikawa doesn't so much as react. "Hey," he says a little gruffly, instead. "You've – _we've_ been waiting for this. Don't chicken out now." He takes a deep breath and nudges Oikawa's chin until the other's eyes focus slightly. "You know… when there's an opening. Even if you aren't perfectly ready for it." He hopes the earnestness is clear enough in his face despite how laboured the words feel. "You shouldn't let yourself miss it. Just in case."

Oikawa's chin wobbles in his hand. He takes a step back so Hajime's arms drop, and then reaches out to cup his face instead, seeming to take a second to gather himself; a tingling, hushed moment passes between them. Oikawa's fingertips are cool against his cheeks, and hold the faintest trace of a tremor. Hajime counts the mahogany speckles in his irises.

And then Oikawa leans down and brushes their lips together.

It's just the barest butterfly of a kiss, skimming his mouth and then gone in an instant, but it steals Hajime's very breath away. Of course, Oikawa has always been able to do that so very easily. But there's more to this: the million unspoken words, the winter that has melted into spring, the solace they have somehow, somewhere along the line, found in each other. It softens the edges of the kiss. It fills in its spaces.

"Thank you," Oikawa murmurs against the corner of his mouth.

Hajime's vocal cords have clogged up, so he simply reaches up to wordlessly squeeze the hand on his cheek before gently pushing Oikawa towards the table once more. This time Oikawa doesn't stop him. He exhales softly to steady himself, glances around once at the light-flooded flat, and then, decisively, his fingers are slipping out of Hajime's as he steps into the kitchen alone.

Nothing happens. No invisible wall shimmers with the impact; no portal closes. But somehow a tangible sense of finality blankets them both. Hajime stays completely still. In one swift motion, Oikawa turns around, so that they're standing facing one another from a universe apart. Tenderness lingers brightly in his gaze. From the window behind him, there comes the sound of sparrows.

Hajime finds his voice at last and takes just one halting step forward. "I'll miss you," he says in a rush, his eyes prickling treacherously.

Oikawa smiles at him, a wide, honest, enchanting thing that surely only a handful of people in any world can claim they are lucky enough to have seen. Hajime can't even bring himself to wipe at his eyes; wants to drink in this sight for as long as he possibly can.

"What do you mean?" Oikawa says, spreading his arms and looking down at himself, and then back up at Hajime, fondly. "Idiot. I'm right here."

Breathless, Hajime laughs shakily. And then – unable to stop himself – he reflexively blinks, once, just to chase away the tears at the fringes of his vision. It really can't have been for longer than a fraction of a second at the very, very most.

And yet somehow he senses it, even before he actually reopens his eyes to the empty kitchen. Oikawa is nowhere to be seen. Light filters in from the window, uninterrupted. Hajime steps towards the table and picks up the pale blue mug sitting on its surface, feeling its cold weight in his palm, and the definitive emptiness of the flat around him. It is really as though no one had ever been there at all. 

Outside, the sparrows continue their triumphant song, letting the world know that they've come home for spring.

* * *

"…because I heard really bad things about the lecturer, but honestly, he isn't that bad at all."

"You can't know that after a week of class," Hajime snorts, "the really evil ones always hide it until it's too late for you to drop the subject."

Hanamaki laughs, shrugging as though to say he can't argue with Hajime's logic. "Well – either way – whatever. It's our last year anyway. I guess I'll just cop it."

They're on their way to Hajime's place to move over another few boxes. He's moving into a one-room in a block of flats just down the street from Hanamaki – it's closer to uni, and he doesn't need that much space now that it's just him. He's never been much of a big shopper and he pretty much wears minor variations of the same three outfits in rotation the whole year. Honestly, he's lucky to have found the new place on such short notice – if it hadn't been for Hanamaki being (very vaguely) acquainted with the guy who was renting it before, and running into him on a late-night 7/11 run, Hajime probably wouldn't have even known about it. Little blessings, he tells himself. They're around the corner.

Hanamaki slows as they pass _that_ bakery that does the profiteroles, which has at some point become a favourite haunt of his whenever he comes by to Hajime's. Apparently the pastry-to-cream ratio is really good there – or something like that, anyway. "Oi, should we grab some to have at yours?"

"I mean, does my opinion on this even matter?" Hajime asks dryly, and Hanamaki sticks his tongue out at him before ducking into the bakery, not bothering to wait for him to follow. Hajime rolls his eyes as the door swings closed and shoves his hands into his pockets, leaning against the glass window displaying rows of spring-themed cakes and pastries. He watches the bustle of the rush hour crowd sweep by and wonders, briefly, how many of them didn't start out in this universe.

The city erupts with life in every corner this year, as though in an attempt to make up for the one that it's lost. Of course, it doesn't get anywhere close to even beginning to fill that space, but Hajime likes the sight of the town blooming around him nonetheless. He huffs self-deprecatingly at the thought – when did he get so sentimental? Oikawa must've rubbed off on him after all.

…Oikawa. Oikawa is in his mind every day. But he doesn't cling there unwelcome, because the memories of him almost always visit kindly now, warm and richly colourful despite the soft sadness of their aftertaste. Hajime dreams about their childhood, dragonfly-chasing and the summers that used to feel infinite then; an old captain's jersey, tossed on a moving box, still smells faintly of the school gymnasium that cradled both their adolescent happinesses; their winter boots on the shoe rack remind him how Oikawa's nose and ears had been tinged a muted cherry-red that sparkling Christmas Eve.

How constantly Hajime misses him, every single thing about him. How unendurable it is sometimes to know that he is gone for good. But each day that he is not by Hajime's side brings with it the dawning realisation that Oikawa is in everything he does: turns of phrase, taste in movies, in-jokes, nicknames, the ugly mugs he still collects, the box of birthday profiteroles that he somehow managed to come up with even without someone's advice. The friends who will remember him and always, always love him – the shades of his heart – the shapes of his hopes.

To know life without Oikawa Tooru, Hajime learns, is not to know a universe without him.

_Idiot. I'm right here!_

In the bruised early evening, an April wind lifts, and the scent of cherry blossoms fills the air.

**Author's Note:**

> hi !! you made it !
> 
> so - i wasn't sure whether i actually wanted to post this for hq week, because i felt like it might a bit depressing for what's supposed to be a celebratory lead-up to the new season. but i don't know, i guess i hoped it might resonate with someone! it was at least partially an opportunity for me to do some cathartic writing, and a lot of the grief-related conversations / thoughts / emotions here are based on experiences a close friend of mine and i had while fumbling our way through our own coping processes. (i do understand that this probably means that what i ended up producing is somewhat personal & potentially idiosyncratic, so if any of the grieving here seemed insensitive or odd to anyone who has had their own distinct experiences of it, i genuinely apologise!)
> 
> if you stuck it out until the end, i'm very grateful. thank you for reading my little thing & i hope you didn't find it to be too much of a trainwreck. i love these two, idk why i hurt them so much haha oops. if you want to yell at me feel free to come do so on my [tumblr](https://soeunaa.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/soeunaa99) i'll cop it (⸝⸝ᵕᴗᵕ⸝⸝) alternatively drop a comment telling me if u maybe………cried ?! i shed a lil tear while smashing this out so would love to know if u did too ahahah


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